Nearly There
by tenebricosa
Summary: They won, didn't they? Everything the world wanted it got. Voldemort dead, peace restored. An elaborate funeral complete with an empty coffin for everyone's favourite hero. But what if all were not as it seemed? On hiatus.
1. Green eyes, black hair

_I must say, I never thought I'd see the day when I finally got around to writing anything of my own. Welcome to my first._

Muggles. Everywhere. Draco suppressed a shudder of revulsion and slipped into the crowd. He tried to keep himself separate, not to touch any of the seething mass around him. He hated them, all of them. He hated his job, his house, and his clothes, down to the round cotton shoelaces that kept slipping out of their knots.

Ever since Voldemort had been defeated by Wonder-Boy Draco had been on the receiving end of the Wizarding World's animosity. Once the fear had lifted they had gone looking for someone to blame, an entire community of wizards out for blood. Unfortunately for Draco the Death Eaters had been killed off, leaving him among the few upon whom it was possible to fix imagined guilt. He found it all the more frustrating for the fact that he had stayed carefully neutral during the war. While he held no sympathies for the so-called good side fighting for life, liberty, and Muggle preservation he placed great stock in self-preservation and had hidden off to one side. Luckily for him the Dark Lord had been too preoccupied to hunt him down.

What made it all the worse was that Harry Potter had died during the final confrontation. No trace of him had been found in the charred ruins of the mansion but there had been an elaborate funeral service all the same. Draco had attended but had been beset from all sides by accusing glares. His culpability was clear to all. If he hadn't been with them, he must have been working against them.

Now he worked among the Muggles. He carefully sidestepped a man hunched against a brick wall, ignoring the clinking of coins in a paper cup. If Draco had been able to find work after that fiasco at the Ministry anyone could.

He pulled his coat tighter around him as if to ward off both the city and the chill. He hated the place, yet now spent his life walking its streets. Even on his day off. He rarely visited with wizards anymore. Somehow everyone seemed to recognize him on the streets and he had been spat on more than a few times while walking down Diagon Alley.

Draco paused at the corner of two streets and watched the cars screaming by. He flatly refused to learn how to drive one and so walked everywhere. By now he had a fair mental map of the important places closest to his small house.

He continued walking down the street but soon felt a raindrop hit him smack on the nose. He brushed it off and scowled at the perpetually grey sky, daring it to rain on him. As if in response another fat drop splashed onto his cheek. He cursed at the sky, drawing a few startled glances from passers-by already safely hidden under their umbrellas. They seemed to be accusing him of having deliberately gotten caught out in the rain and then having the audacity to complain about it.

He walked a bit further until the drizzle decided to escalate into all-out rain. He tried out a few more inventive curses aimed at the clouds but as this didn't seem to be helping he ducked into an ensconced doorway. There was already someone else in it, but he paid them no mind, huddling further into corner and trying not to touch the grimy walls.

The young man opposite him was staring out at the rain with an amused expression, watching the men and women caught without umbrellas scramble about like ants. He turned to Draco, mouth partially open to spark a conversation but shut it quickly and snapped back around, his black hair whipping around him.

But not before Draco had seen those eyes.

"Green eyes. Black hair. And here I was hoping you were dead," he said monotonously.


	2. Ishmael

_Thank you reviewers, you made my day. Now I'm happy enough to write some more.  
_

The black haired man turned to Draco, a half-smile on his face and a look of slight confusion in his eyes. "I'm sorry sir, but I don't think we've met."

"Drop the act, Potter," Draco said angrily. "Do you really think you can fool me? All those years as enemies and you thought I wouldn't still shudder in disgust at your face."

Harry stopped, the smile falling from his face. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall for support as he did.

"You were supposed to be dead," Draco continued, sensing weakness. "I even went to your funeral like the upstanding citizen I am. It was a lovely affair. Such a shame you weren't there. You could have comforted that mangy little Granger girl. She was bawling her eyes out, a disgrace to the Wizarding World if I ever saw one."

"What do you want, Malfoy?"

"Not one for small talk today, are you, Potter? Don't you want to hear about your funeral? About the obituaries, the speeches, the coffin? They erected a statue of you in Diagon Alley, you know. 'In memory of Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World.' It gives me the willies every time I walk past it."

Harry opened his eyes and looked past Draco, out at the street. "The rain's stopped," he said tersely. "Follow me."

Draco allowed himself to be led through a twisting mass of streets which were still mostly empty; a good number of pedestrians had found they had errands to attend to in the sidewalk shops when the rain had started. He had to step carefully to avoid the puddles collecting in the dips of the pavement. A large white cat, fat and content, watched him pass by from its warm, dry seat on a low windowsill. He let himself hate it for its superior attitude before putting his attention back to the more important task at hand: staying dry.

Harry eventually stopped in front of a squat beige building ornamented with a garish embossed frieze of vines and a few ugly gargoyles perched on the roof, too busy spitting out mouthfuls of rainwater into alleys to the sides to pay any attention to the men below them.

Harry unlocked a large metal grille that covered the doorway and then the grey wooden door with its bulky brass lock. He closed them both carefully after Draco entered and the two men walked first up a flight of stairs then down a corridor with peeling lime-green paint illuminated by a bare bulb.

Draco walked through a door held open for him and looked around Harry's flat. The paint wasn't peeling and the place was neat, but the couch was threadbare and the table with its two chairs was deeply worn.

"Sit down," Harry gestured to one of the two chairs and took the other himself. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and sat expectantly, waiting for the inevitable question.

Draco obliged. "What are you playing at here? You could have everything. Wizards would be waiting in line to kiss your boots. You would be rich, famous, everything anyone could ever want."

Harry thought for a moment, as if considering the matter for the first time. Eventually he shrugged and said, "I could, but I won't. You know I always hated it in school? Popularity is fickle. One day they were all on my side cheering me on from the sidelines and the next I was their pariah, Ishmael for all intents and purposes. I much preferred anonymity, but I suppose that's over now."

"Over?"

He pushed black hair back from his forehead, exposing the scar that had been the cause of so much trouble. "You see that? I know you do, everyone does. It's all they ever see, all they ever have seen. Once you tell them I'm still around every witch and wizard will be on the lookout for it.

"I don't begrudge you the chance, though," he continued, seeing Draco's expression, "after what they've put you through you deserve a little redemption." He laughed morosely, "If you're lucky they might even forget who your father is."

Draco looked at him closely; saw the resignation in his eyes. "No, actually, Potter, I don't think I will."


	3. Plight

Well, I've ignored this for long enough. Thank you to those who have already reviewed, and thank you to any who do so in the future. I love you all :D

Harry blinked once and stood up slowly. He stood for a minute, looking down at Draco through a mop of unruly black hair before turning and walking over to the range. He took a dented black kettle off its shelf before pausing for a minute and putting it back.

"No tea after all, then?"

"I don't have any tea bags. I ran out last week."

"Transfigure something."

"I can't." Harry's voice was clipped, fraught with lingering regret and sorrow. "I haven't used magic since…since…you know when. Since the day they decided I deserved that statue you told me about."

He laughed a hollow chuckle. "I have a statue. And I never even knew about it. You know, I haven't even spoken to my friends since then. I made new ones, of course, but they can't compare. There's always something missing. I have to sift through everything I say before I say it, lest something unintended slip out."

Draco watched as the other man walked back to the table, sat down, and began to pick at the scored wood.

"I can't say I understand you. What's a little public adoration? You could be rich, powerful, loved by everyone. I would kill for my old power. I very nearly did. But I suppose you know all about that."

"I don't, actually. I fell behind on Wizarding World news a few years ago, as you might imagine. Having owls flying into and out of my window would attract the neighbours' attention, I'm afraid."

"Well quite simply they accused me of following Voldemort. Apparently a neutral stance wasn't good enough for them and I was their natural scapegoat, son of a Death Eater and all." He sniffed haughtily. "They took everything. Well, nearly. _I_ came out of it intact, after all, which was more than some of them would have wished."

His elegant features wrinkled in open disgust. "Now I work with Muggles," he spat angrily. "They couldn't find somewhere lower to put me, so I'm in Muggle relations. _Muggle Relations_. Dear daddy would be proud."

Harry chewed his lower lip for a minute, unsure of what to say. His forehead creased as he frowned momentarily before bursting into laughter.

"I fail to find my plight entertaining."

"It's not yours, it's ours."

"What?'

"We were always so different. I hated you, you hated me, and we lived on fine like that. I was the poster boy of the light and you were everything they told me to hate. You were pompous and snotty, rich and spoiled. I suppose I was, too. I just didn't realize it at the time.

"Now we're both here, in my ratty old apartment. We're both poor, cut off from family funds, both lacking Wizarding acceptance, living and working among muggles, and both bloody miserable about it, too. Or am I wrong?"

"The only difference is that you chose your little hell-hole, Potter."

Harry jumped to his feet angrily. "What else was I supposed to do?" He shouted? "Stay there and pose for pictures in the streets? They didn't want me, they wanted their saviour. They wanted me to sit politely in a corner until they needed photos, maybe write a book, sign some autographs. Half of them didn't trust me, anyway. They thought I was set to be the next Voldemort, a power-crazed teenager only suitable for locking away in a dark room somewhere to be forgotten until the glory faded and I got over myself."

"It's not going to fade, though. Not even now that you're," he hesitated for a moment, "for all intents and purposes dead. The Daily Prophet has a monthly column about you. It's full of sightings. Some batty witch in Edinburgh claimed she spoke with you last month."

"She probably did."

"Yet you don't care. I suppose it's a good thing for you that most people dismiss that all as nonsense. I did, too.

They're going to figure it out sooner or later, you know. Eventually someone like me is going to come along and expose you. Someone who doesn't care. Someone who wants to use you to get back everything they lost in that godforsaken war."

"Why don't you? You haven't told me that."

"Why don't I? I don't know. Maybe I will after all. Then precious Potter would get back his fan club and his fortune and I would regain…something. Why don't you? You're miserable here, and you claim you would be miserable there. What's it to you one way or another?"

Harry stood up abruptly. "Nothing." He laughed, but sincerely this time, the subtle lines on his face creasing the corners of his eyes. "It's nothing to me. I'm going to Gringotts. I might as well make a reappearance there. Are you coming?"


	4. Butterbeer

_I do believe I was promised cupcakes... _

_Cupcakes aside, thank you to all reviewers thus far, though I would appreciate a few more. It's such a satisfying feeling just to know that someone read this, whether you hated it or loved it or some ambivalent feeling in between the two. So please, drop just a few words in the review box. I'll love you forever. Promise.  
_

Harry stood up, brushing black hair out of his eyes. "Wait for me a minute," he called as he disappeared into another room. A few flakes of white paint fluttered to the ground as the door closed behind him.

Draco sat on his chair, motionless, listening to the rummaging sounds and thinking to himself. _Did I just...is he coming back because of me-_

Harry burst back into the main room with a bounce in his step that had not been there before. He still wore his faded jeans and plain tee shirt but he carried his wand with its phoenix feather core. He smiled proudly and said, "I haven't so much as looked at this in months. I used to take it out quite often, just to look at it and convince myself it wasn't all in my imagination."

He swished it and watched the varicoloured sparks that shot out from its tip. "I suppose it wasn't all a dream, then."

Draco watched him walk purposefully out of the small apartment and sat there for a minute, collecting his thoughts before jumping up and chasing after him. Draco caught him just as he was leaving the building.

"Rash as always, I see." He managed his signature drawl despite having to walk at a near-run to keep up. "Not that I care, but what are you planning on doing?"

Harry stopped abruptly, setting Draco a few paces ahead before he noticed. "I don't quite know, to be honest." He started walking again. "I don't care, either. But I want a butterbeer, so I suppose I'm headed to The Leaky Cauldron after I pick up some money."

"One more question."

"What?"

"Why in Merlin's name are we _walking_?"

"Oh. Right. Meet you at Gringotts." Harry looked around for a second, ducked into an alley, and disapparated with a loud crack. Draco, newly irritated, moved to do the same but noticed just in time the curious stares he was getting from passerby and decided it would be best to find another, less obtrusive alley.

The next chance he got was in the bathroom of a bar. It reeked of stale vomit and badly aimed urine. There was someone already in the place, a large, burly bear of a man who, it seemed, had taken refuge in the bar to escape the earlier rain and decided not to leave. Draco stared at his back until he left, obviously discomfited.

Finally the blonde disapparated to Diagon Alley, landing just under the statue. He glared up at it for a moment and then turned only to see a crowd of people around the Leaky Cauldron. Apparently their returning saviour had already made his trip to Gringotts. He probably hadn't missed anything anyway, he mused. It was remarkably hard to make a goblin show any kind of emotion other than vague distaste.

He approached the throng warily, listening to snippets of their conversations. "Did you hear? It's Harry-", "He's back!", "It's just a rumour.", "Bad for business, all this tumult-"

Growing tired of their jabbering, he pushed through the mass of confused witches and wizards to the front where he saw Harry sitting calmly on a wooden bar stool sipping at a frothing mug. "Potter!"

Harry turned and saw Draco standing a few feet away at the very edge of the clear circle that surrounded him. He grinned wryly. "Here, sit down. I saved you a seat."

"What are you doing, Potter?"

"Making headlines, Malfoy. Other than that, I'm having a drink and vaguely wishing that either the drink was stronger or that everyone here," he gestured vaguely, "would shove off and let me have it in peace."

A few people murmured embarrassedly and made their way through the crowd back to their own worries but most were too drawn in by the spell of seeing someone they had thought dead. They whispered to each other, private suspicions confirmed and new speculations being created.

One man pushed himself through and launched himself at Harry. "Mr. Potter, if I could have just a moment of your time," he didn't wait for a reply. "My name is Attulus Smith; I work for the Wizarding Voice, an up and coming alternative Wizarding World newspaper. Would you please answer a few questions? The entire populace is already buzzing about your return."

"Well, you see, the thing is-"

"Mr. Potter will answer your questions later in an exclusive interview. If you spread the word to the other reporters to stay away, that is. See what you can do about this crowd, as well, though I don't have high hopes for that one. Now go. You will be contacted later, Mr. Smith."

Attulus scurried off, stopping to talk to another man with a camera around his neck on the way. The second one glared at him resentfully but turned and pushed his way back through the crowd.

"What was that?"

"Oh, no, not a problem at all, Potter. I'm happy you help you out any day since you obviously can't handle this by yourself. On that note, buy me a drink and we can work out my fees."

"What!"

"You didn't think I'd help you for free, did you. Oh, youthful naiveté."


	5. Fees?

_Oooh, another chapter. I kept all of you waiting, your fingers poised to review, I know. Now that I've released you from that terrible imprisonment feel free to actually click those lovely little buttons and leave lovely little reviews telling me how much you loved, hated, or were ambivalent about my story. Please?_

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"Fees? Fees! Who says I even want your help, Malfoy, much less want to pay you for it?"

Draco finished ordering his own drink with orders to put it on Harry's tab before turning back to his companion with a calm and derisive look on his face. "Potter, for once in your miserable little life, _think_. Do you truly want your return to the Wizarding World to be nothing but lights, cameras, interviews and never a moment of peace? That's what it's set to be right now. Even you must realize this. You disappeared for years and yet you expect to be able to slip back into society without so much as a ripple.

"You're famous. You are an icon. Little boys dress up as you and pretend to cast spells with their toy wands at other little boys, vanquishing the dark lord all over again. And as much as the thought sickens me it remains true day after day as the same little boys play their same little games even as the adults play their own games, searching in vain for your body, reading the hopeful articles in the newspapers and all the time venerating your dead and rotting carcass. Which, unfortunately," he added wryly, "is neither dead nor rotting."

Harry sank down on his stool, resting his head in his hands, and groaned slightly. "Why does it all have to be so _difficult_?"

Draco turned to the barkeep, "I would like to take a room here, one with at least two chairs, two beds, a table, and I would appreciate it if you would provide us with some parchment, a quill and ink. No, no. I don't want your room, any regular one will do just fine. Thank you. Come along, Potter."

Harry followed Draco meekly up the stairs, not saying a word. They entered the room Draco had asked for and he sat down in one of the chairs, chewing his lower lip thoughtfully.

The room was a fairly standard double room, sparsely furnished yet indelibly comfortable. It was a far cry from Harry's muggle apartment and he reveled in what to him now passed for luxury as he sat in one of the two chairs.

Before a word was spoken a boy ran into the room, arms laden with parchment and quills. He set them on the table along with a stoppered bottle of ink he pulled out of his pocket, bowed deeply to a surprised Harry and ran out of the room. The two men listened to the sound of his footsteps fade away as he descended the wooden staircase.

"All right." Harry jumped as Draco abruptly broke the silence. "We've got some work to do here, Potter. First let me congratulate you on not having said or done anything particularly stupid during your first half hour back in this godforsaken part of the world. Secondly, let me tell you that if you happen to do or say anything stupid that I haven't expressly ordered you to do or say I will personally hang you by your ankles and flay you. Are we clear?"

Draco waited for Harry's apprehensive nod before continuing with his tirade. "Very well. Now let me make something else very clear. I am not doing this for you. I don't even _like_ you. I find this overdone appreciation of your 'great exploit' sickening. I am doing this for money and perhaps even a little bit of regained respect. I would like," he said bitterly, "to be able to walk into a store and be treated with some small respect, even mere acknowledgement of my presence would be appreciated. Pathetic though it may be you are the most contact I have had with any wizard for the past several years.

"Now I am not going to be your secretary, watchdog, or otherwise personal assistant. I _will_ arrange interviews, make up some hogwash story of where you've been for you to spout at those interviews, and generally take advantage of the situation. If you don't like that I'll leave now and you can deal with the, erm, ravenous hordes by yourself."

Harry blinked once and agreed with an indifferent shrug.

"Excellent. Now go and amuse yourself. Your fans await you."

A few moments later Harry was walking nervously out into Diagon Alley, headed in the direction of one place he sincerely hoped was still around. Sure enough he rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of bright flashing signs and a chattering crowd.

Peering over the vulture hat of a woman in front of him he confirmed that it was indeed the Weasleys' shop, unchanged despite the years it had been since he last set foot inside. The only remarkable difference was that the posters had been replaced for newer, more vulgar ones advertising all manner of aids for the casual practical joker.

When he reached the store he cast caution to the winds and stepped inside, not caring about the growing crowd that had been following him since he'd left the inn.

He stood on tiptoes, wishing not for the first time that he was taller, and looked around anxiously for a red head of hair. After a moment he saw one. "Fred!"

It turned. "I'm George, but how may I help...Harry?"

"In the flesh."


End file.
